Mutating policies

Mutating policies are structured in the very same way as validating ones:

• They have to register validate and validate_settings waPC functions
• The communication API used between the host and the policy is the very same as the one used by validating policies.

Mutating policies can accept a request and propose a mutation of the incoming object by returning a ValidationResponse object that looks like this:

{
  "accepted": true,
  "mutated_object": <object to be created>
}

The mutated_object field contains the object the policy wants to be created inside of the Kubernetes cluster serialized to JSON.

A concrete example

Let's assume the policy received this ValidationRequest:

{
  "settings": {},
  "request": {
    "operation": "CREATE",
    "object": {
      "apiVersion": "v1",
      "kind": "Pod",
      "metadata": {
        "name": "security-context-demo-4"
      },
      "spec": {
        "containers": [
        {
          "name": "sec-ctx-4",
          "image": "gcr.io/google-samples/node-hello:1.0",
          "securityContext": {
            "capabilities": {
              "add": ["NET_ADMIN", "SYS_TIME"]
            }
          }
        }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

note

We left some irrelevant fields out of the request object.

This request is generated because someone tried to create a Pod that would look like this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: security-context-demo-4
spec:
  containers:
  - name: sec-ctx-4
    image: gcr.io/google-samples/node-hello:1.0
    securityContext:
      capabilities:
        add:
        - NET_ADMIN
        - SYS_TIME

Let's assume our policy replies with the following ValidationResponse:

{
  "accepted": true,
  "mutated_object": {
    "apiVersion": "v1",
    "kind": "Pod",
    "metadata": {
      "name": "security-context-demo-4"
    },
    "spec": {
      "containers": [
        {
          "name": "sec-ctx-4",
          "image": "gcr.io/google-samples/node-hello:1.0",
          "securityContext": {
            "capabilities": {
              "add": [
                "NET_ADMIN",
                "SYS_TIME"
              ],
              "drop": [
                "BPF"
              ]
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

That would lead to the request being accepted, but the final Pod would look like this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: security-context-demo-4
spec:
  containers:
  - name: sec-ctx-4
    image: gcr.io/google-samples/node-hello:1.0
    securityContext:
      capabilities:
        add:
        - NET_ADMIN
        - SYS_TIME
        drop:
        - BPF

As you can see, the policy altered the securityContext.capabilities.drop section of the only container declared inside of the Pod.

The container is now dropping the BPF capability thanks to our policy.

Recap

These are the functions a mutating policy must implement:

waPC function name	Input payload	Output payload
validate	{ "request": { // AdmissionReview.request data }, "settings": { // your policy configuration } }	{ // mandatory "accepted": boolean, // optional, ignored if accepted // recommended for rejections "message": string, // optional, ignored if accepted "code": integer, // JSON Object to be created // Can be used only when the // request is accepted "mutated_object": object }
validate_settings	{ // your policy configuration }	{ // mandatory "validate": boolean, // optional, ignored if accepted // recommended for rejections "message": string, }